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The imperial age of Rome begins with the death of Augustus and continues arguably until the fall of the western empire. The speeches of Seneca the Elder in Controversies attempt to argue both sides of a complicated legal question, often citing the opinions of famous rhetoricians of the past. The stories abounded concerning Nero's sexual excesses and his penchant for public performance is reported. The Moral Epistles applied Stoic ethical doctrine to a variety of specific situations. Musonius argues that a master having sex with a female slave is no better than a mistress doing so with a male...

The imperial age of Rome begins with the death of Augustus and continues arguably until the fall of the western empire. The speeches of Seneca the Elder in Controversies attempt to argue both sides of a complicated legal question, often citing the opinions of famous rhetoricians of the past. The stories abounded concerning Nero's sexual excesses and his penchant for public performance is reported. The Moral Epistles applied Stoic ethical doctrine to a variety of specific situations. Musonius argues that a master having sex with a female slave is no better than a mistress doing so with a male slave. Martial was a prolific writer of barbed, satirical epigrams on the follies of his time. Silvae consoles the young jurist Flavius Ursus for the loss of his beloved slave Philetas, who died at the age of fifteen. Quintilian was a rhetorician who wrote on the education of an ideal orator.